The little verb to be serves as an all-purpose crutch for users of English. Grammarians, linguists, and writers, besides general semanticists, recognize the pervasiveness of to be and many of the ways it can lead us astray. Nevertheless, one English sentence in two employs some version of to be, and most paragraphs have at least a dozen.

What would happen if we threw to be out of the English language altogether? Could we still speak and write? A brief unit consisting of two or three one-hour lessons in E-Prime (English minus the verb to be) for adult professionals will provide unexpected bonuses.

Besides making students use a wider selection of action verbs- besides making their sentences livelier and more interesting- E-Prime also calls the students' attention to the psychological and philosophical implications of their addiction to to be. The E-Prime unit helps explain why Alfred Korzybski worried so much about the "ises-of-identity and predication." These lessons apply equally well regardless of the course title - general semantics, technical writing, creative writing, or business English.

Recently, I taught the E-Prime unit at the U.S. Department of State to my class in Effective Writing for Managers, composed of twenty employees rated GS-12 to GS-17. Most of these students had graduated from college, and several held advanced degrees. They responded enthusiastically to the unit. But not all students of E-Prime need such advanced credentials. I have also presented this unit to ordinary high school seniors.

Before getting into the unit itself, I usually find it helpful to examine the various ways we use to be in English: as an auxiliary to form the progressive tense, as a copula or equals mark, and as the essential auxiliary to form the passive voice.

In the first usage, as an auxiliary for the progressive tense, to be doesn't do much damage. We can say, "Josie is dreaming" or "Archie is running for office." People who like to identify grammatical relationships can have some fun with these, because the participle (in the above examples dreaming and running) acts like an adjective in a Subject-Linking Verb-Adjective (S-LV-Adj) basic sentence pattern. But they can also interpret it so that the whole phrase (is dreaming or is running) becomes the verb in a Subject-Verb pattern. In either case, to be doesn't confuse the meaning since these verbs translate easily into the present tense (dreams or runs). If to be acted in this way only, we would need have no concern about it. But in its two other uses, to be really causes trouble.

In a sentence like "Reginald is absent," the verb links or couples the subject to the predicate adjective to state a fact. Hearers recognize that Reginald might come in late at any moment. But the sentence "Reginald is stupid" uses the same grammatical structure. This sentence, unlike the first, does not state a verifiable report. Instead it presents the opinion of an agent who hides outside the sentence. A more forthright statement would be "I think Reginald is stupid." Clearly, in this case, Reginald, the innocent victim, may have done nothing to earn himself the bad label he got stuck with. Equally obvious, anyone who hears the statement "Reginald is stupid" tends to believe that he has less intelligence than the average; and more important, that next month or next year, Reginald will remain just as dumb as today.

A similar confusion arises with the usage "Mr. Landers is my supervisor," compared with "Mr. Landers is a cornball." In both, the verb to be undiscriminatingly relates the subject and the predicate noun, implying that they equal one another. Because we tend to accept the S-LV-N pattern as a factual report, we do not often differentiate when the same grammatical structure presents not a fact, but an unsupported opinion that belongs to Mr. Nobody.

In this way, the S-LV-Adj pattern produces the "is of predication" and the S-LV-N pattern gives us the "is of identity" - serious problems that concerned Alfred Korzybski. Simply dealing with the philosophy and psychology of these "ises" justifies our E-Prime experiment. But the next problem demands even more concern.

The third use of to be brings home the really bad effect it can have as the auxiliary to form the passive voice. The big problem here lies in the passive usage itself. Style manuals, probably without exception, advise writers to avoid the passive and use the active voice whenever possible, for a number of very good reasons.

Passive usage takes the agent out of the subject position and puts him or her back into the sentence, if at all, as the object of an adverbial prepositional phrase tacked onto the end of the sentence. The original object must then move into the subject position, and we get, for example, "The water was spilled by Hortense." Like all passive subjects, the water does not act. An agent must drink it, splash it, use it, or spill it. Passive sentences crawl and drag along, lacking directness and liveliness. Each contains at least two more words (was and by) than its active voice counterpart. For these reasons among others, writing instructors urge their students to avoid the passive voice.

A more complicated problem arises when a writer selects for the subject of a passive sentence neither a person nor an object (as the innocent victim) but rather an abstraction coined from what would normally have been the verb of the sentence with a suffix such as "tion" or "ment." Verbs like use, arrange, consider, and suspect turn into utilization, arrangement, consideration, and suspicion, preempting the subject position and leaving the verb position blank. Then "smothered verbs" must use a form of to be to take their place. So we get sentences like "Utilization of the proposed arrangement's effectuated" or "Consideration of your unfounded suspicion is responsible for unnecessary delays in the completion of our project." We can see that such sentences do not contain any agent and, because to be doesn't take an object, can't have an object either. Who does what? Does anybody know? Surely such sentences have no referents in the real world.

I call sentences that start like these examples "subjections" because the subject so often ends in "tion." And I advise my pupils to shun the "tion." Although it may sound profound and high class, it actually conveys little or no meaning. Ordinarily, I would expect bright professionals with good ideas to stay away from "subjections." But, ironically, I find that business, technical, legal, and academic writing overflows with these agentless, objectless, and meaningless passives. They occur pervasively in the mountains of paperwork that choke professional offices and sharply reduce then-effectiveness. And none of this could happen without that sneaky little verb to be.

In the real world, action and change always go on, producing constant variety and nothing identical. Besides the individuality of every thing, every person sees with unique eyes, and feels, hears, smells, and tastes with one-of-a-kind sensors. He or she processes sensations through an individual brain and nervous system, and responds uniquely to an environment seen from only one shifting point of view.

General semantics requires that we remain aware of abstracting-the process with which each person selects a few things to pay attention to in the environment, and ignores most others. The notion of abstracting further asserts that people's brains provide names with which people refer to objects of experience, and, in turn, their brains give out more words with which they refer to and categorize the original names. General semanticists call these "higher level abstractions." The Korzybskian formulation of intensional reasoning means that people's brains may generate verbal concepts or ideas spun out of other ideas, without reference to external objective reality.

Therefore, when we say that something is something, we dishonestly, although probably unconsciously, suggest that what we think must really exist. This hides the fact that we use to be to make judgments and to put people into pigeonholes by describing them with a single adjective or noun. E-Prime results in better writing because it comes closer to describing what really goes on "out there."

To start the E-Prime unit, I ask the class, "What would happen if we decided to prohibit anyone from using to be for a single hour, or from writing it in any letter or report for a day?" Students usually respond that the idea is absurd, that English without to be is bound to sound funny, that nobody would be able to do it, and that it just isn't practical. This article itself, written entirely in E-Prime except for quoted examples and references to to be by name, demonstrates, I hope, that E-Prime need not sound peculiar.

I next suggest that E-Prime can eliminate confusion, head off misunderstandings, cut out lies, clarify relationships, and deal a solid blow to gobbledygook. With all these claims going for it, I ask, why not give it a try?

The idea of E-Prime originated with D. David Bourland, a student of Korzybski's. The E-Prime unit demonstrates that students don't really need to be nearly as much as they think. Conversely, getting rid of some of their "ises" helps students see that E-Prime can help their writing in other ways-by making them select better subjects, more active verbs, and fewer flowery modifiers.

I start the E-Prime unit by passing out copies of an article, "The Unisness of Is," which I paraphrased from an old article in Time. I include a copy at the end of this paper for any teachers who want to copy and use it. This article reports an interview with David Bourland in which he explains the rationale of E-Prime. I assign this for overnight reading because it accords Bourland the credit he deserves for inventing E-Prime, and at the same time it gives the students ammunition for a lively class discussion at their next session.

When the students next convene, they usually sound skeptical. Most of them, having looked at how much they rely on to be, realize they would have a hard time getting along without it. On the other hand, I point out that English has thousands of other verbs, both action and linking, and that surely bright people can find substitutes for just one verb.

Some students object that E-Prime has no practical application. To this, I truthfully reply that Dr. Albert Ellis, the well-known psychologist, considers to be such a serious threat to mental health that he has rewritten many of his books in E-Prime as his contribution to sanity. Incidentally, I add. Dr. Ellis's books don't sound funny at all.

Regardless of whether or not my students seem convinced that E-Prime will cure all their writing problems, I exercise my authority and insist that each student write for the next assignment an essay of about three hundred words in E-Prime, on any subject he or she likes. In case they don't remember all the parts of to be, I tell them to consult the dictionary. I also remind my students that the verbs to do and to have as well as the auxiliaries can, may, might, will, would, etc., do not belong to to be, so they can freely use them in their essays.

Students often leave this session of the class grumbling that their teacher is crazy. But by the next class session I usually find that their attitudes, at least about E-Prime, have changed. Most of the students, having accepted the challenge of E-Prime, quickly become its advocates. They see all kinds of values they didn't anticipate. One student told me rather bemusedly, "I can't believe it. I've been thinking in the passive all my life!"

Picking up on the enthusiasm of the moment, I invite the students to read their essays aloud to one another, taking turns. As each one reads, the others listen carefully, smiling at the strategies the writer has used to avoid the to be trap, and marveling at the way E-Prime produces livelier, more tightly constructed expression. I always admire the variety of subjects the students have chosen. And along with them, I note that some subjects fit the E-Prime format better than others.

Students who try to describe the Library or Congress or the King Tut exhibit, essentially passive inanimate subjects, have more trouble than those who write about sports, family adventures, or accidents, in which I, we, he, she, or they supply realistic agents for action verbs.

But no matter what subject they have chosen, writers who have always relied heavily on the passive voice and the "is of identity" find E-Prime much harder going than their less pompous classmates. Some students write delicate descriptions, while others deal with earthier events in blunter language. But regardless of the theme, each essay sparkles with action verbs that enliven the writing at the same time they cut down on the need for extra adverbs.

Of course, neither I nor my students believe that we should necessarily give up to be forever. David Bourland may speak and write exclusively in E-Prime, but for most of us, just cutting down on our reliance on to be will suffice. We've seen how E-Prime can give us a shortcut to understanding the passive voice and the "ises of identity and predication," all of which interfere with lively description, clear writing, clear thinking, and honest expression. I usually suggest that students come back to E-Prime every few weeks, just to check up on themselves.

In any event, an E-Prime unit serves as an eye-opener for both students and teacher. For a two- or three-hour project, most of my students agree with me that E-Prime really pays off. After all, I couldn't have written this paper without it.

The Unisness of Is

A Time magazine article furnished the basis for the following report. Some years ago a reporter talked with D. David Bourland, a computer systems analyst, about his project of scrubbing from his speech and writing all forms of the verb to be. The first time he tried to do this, Bourland recalls, "it gave me a headache. But after practicing for a while, I found that it comes easily."

Would writing in E-Prime, as Bourland calls English minus the verb to be, sound funny? Bourland answers: "People seem impressed by the clarity of my expression and the ease with which they can understand me."

"For example," he continues, "in a case where most people might judge themselves harshly by saying, 'I'm no good at math,' I would advise them to say instead,/! got poor grades in sixth grade arithmetic,' or 'I did better in other subjects than I did in math.' With this sentence structure, I feel that people will not condemn them-selves forever to fail at problems that require mathematical skill. Rather they will recognize that they simply report on past experience, without predicting that the same thing will inevitably, or even probably, happen again. In this way, we can avoid the 'self-fulfilling prophecy.' "

Bourland's interest in language and its effects on behavior and thought stems from his experiences as a young man in the 1940s when he studied at the Institute of General Semantics in Lakeville, Connecticut. There he attended lectures by Alfred Korzybski, whose theories form the basis of the general semantics movement. Korzybski believed that the verb to be causes serious communications disturbances and other psychological problems for modern man. In his book Science and Sanity, Korzybski referred to these problems as the "is of predication" and the "is of identity." In both, he blamed the verb to be for misleading people into making untrue and unwarranted assumptions.

Going his teacher one better, David Bourland heads up a crusade for the adoption of E-Prime.

"General semanticists," Bourland explains, "object to to be for philosophical as well as psychological reasons. To start with, we reject an axiom of classical logic: the principle of identity. For that reason, we call ourselves advocates of 'non-Aristotelian logic.' Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived before Socrates, insisted that 'everything changes.' He saw this as the basic truth of existence. Time moves inexorably, and in the fraction of a second you need to describe a thing, it has already begun to alter.

"For example, sentences like A rose is a rose,' 'the law is the law/' and 'a man ain't nuthin' but a man' do not really say what they seem to. The first rose has wilted a tiny bit before you get to the next one. In the second example, identical words mean different things. One translation of 'the law is the law' might read, 'You must obey a jay-walking ordinance or take your chances on getting a ticket if they catch you.'

"Even more clearly," continues Bourland, " A man ain't nuthin' but a man' might translate to, 'You can't expect any man to behave more honestly, strenuously, forcefully, etc., than the average person.' You should notice that we could make many other translations for these sentences, so that what appears as a simple 'truth' in these sayings can actually mean almost anything anyone wants it to mean. Along with that belongs the idea that a speaker has no assurance that his listener will get the same message he sends.

"I believe firmly that language affects thought and behavior," Bourland goes on. "People don't realize how much everything changes because the verb to be gives them an illusion of permanence. Our language remains the language of absolutes and this very usually causes it. The spurious identity it so readily connotes perverts our perception of reality.

"A pair of common enough sentence structures employ to be to tempt man into mistaken value judgments. Korzybski called the Subject-Linking Verb-Adjective sentence pattern the 'is of predication' and the 'Subject-Linking Verb-Noun' pattern the 'is of identity.' "

A sentence like "Robert is stupid" exemplifies the first, while "Marcia is a genius" demonstrates the second. "Actually," explains Bourland/ "both limit in a similar manner our ability to see Robert and Marcia as whole persons, or to accept the idea that they may develop different characteristics in the future. This makes us always see them as stupid or brilliant now and forever after."

Besides keeping us from falling into the errors he described, Bourland says, E-Prime has certain advantages over conventional English. For one, unanswerable questions like "who am I?-why was I born?-was man created to suffer?-who is the ruler of the universe?" do not arise because without to be nobody can ask them.

People who take refuge in waffling statements based on unprovable or unproved evidence cannot say in E-Prime, "It is established ..." or "Of course, that is common knowledge. . . ."

In a sense, Korzybski argued that every time we use "is," we lie. Even though certain "to be" statements tell facts (i.e., Mr. Thomas is my boss), they still prevaricate in that the sentence directs our attention away from all the other aspects of Mr. Thomas's personality. It makes us believe that Mr. Thomas's "bossness" takes precedence over anything else about him.

According to David Bourland/ "Using E-Prime can improve a per-son's outlook on life. Once you realize that every time you say z's you tell a lie, you begin to think less about a thing or person's 'identity' and more about its function. I find that E-Prime makes me stay honest."

Ruth S. Ralph teaches at the American University, Washington, D.C., and works actively in the new national organization Plain Talk, Inc. In 1971 she wrote her doctoral dissertation on "The Effects of Training in General Semantics."

¹  Reprinted from Classroom Exercises in General Semantics, International Society for General Semantics, Concord, California, 1980.

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